


ruin.

by eihas



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gen, abusive stuff but kinda not really ??, theyre mean to him sometimes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 12:36:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11623680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eihas/pseuds/eihas
Summary: akira's life before the events of p5, moments when he lived with his parents. a character study.they mean the best for him. they weren't always this way.





	ruin.

**Author's Note:**

> it seems i can only finish writing anything if i'm projecting stupidly hard during a depressive episode! nice. i didn't reread any of this, also. having asian parents sucks. sorry if this is vague i astral projected to space while writing this

Akira jerked in his bed. He had fallen asleep, it seemed. He wondered if his parents had seen him, as he got up and put on his glasses, immediately reaching to sit in the swivelly chair of his desk instead. A hand pressed against his temple, nursing an old headache that managed to persist despite the nap as he tapped the screen of his phone. 8:34 PM, it said, and he braced himself again, turning off his phone and immediately grabbing a random book off his shelf. It was one of those good ones that his dad bought him, the ones about economics and shit. He didn’t care. Whatever. He flipped open to the last page he had read. It was page 28 and he hated this stupid book.

He sat there until he heard his parents go to bed. _Whatever_ , he thought again, as he swiftly changed into his pajamas. He wouldn’t brush his teeth tonight. It was whatever, he could go a day without brushing his damn teeth.

Anything so he wouldn’t have to go out his room.

Anything so they wouldn’t come in his room.

He curled back up on his bed, the light of his phone illuminating the darkened room, and scrolled through different apps, and looked at funny videos until he fell asleep. His chat app was there for aesthetics, because there were no notable contacts there.

 

* * *

  

He woke up to the frustrated sigh of his mother, who had unceremoniously opened his bedroom door at 6:30 AM, clearly annoyed that he hadn’t woken up at 6 like he was supposed to. Akira faked being asleep just so he wouldn’t have to deal with her cruel scolding first thing in the morning and she eventually slammed the door back shut. He flinched and checked his phone. He’d pretend to wake up in ten minutes, he’d pretend he didn’t see that.

 

Sure enough, in exactly eleven minutes he came downstairs and pretended he hadn’t been just scrolling across social media apps to pass the time. His mother did not acknowledge him and just wiped her hands on her apron before taking it off, hanging it on the hook. Her cheeks were sucked in and her lips, pressed, a stern look of disapproval written clearly on her face. Akira wondered if he should’ve brushed his hair before coming downstairs. He wondered if it would’ve helped at all, given her mood. Then again, she always did hate how messy his hair always was.

“Your father’s already left,” she said simply, tying up her hair as she walked pass him without greeting. “Your grandfather has a hospital visit today, so I won’t be home until after dinner.”

“Okay,” he said simply, pulling out a chair at the dining table and listening to it scrape against the floor. She didn’t bother to look at him.

“If you miss cram school, I’ll know, so go.”

“Okay.”

She pulled on her heels at the front door.

“Have a good day,” he said weakly. It was an attempt.

His mother grunted in reply, leaving the house in a whisk. The door slammed shut and it wasn’t for another five minutes until Akira felt himself relax. The house was finally empty and the catharsis, temporary. But it was welcomed, nevertheless.

In a fit of frustration, he grabbed a pack of ramen noodles from the top shelf, the ones his dad ate when he came especially late from work, smelling like cheap alcohol and frustration, and threw it in a pot. He wasn’t supposed to eat junk food in the morning, but he didn’t care. Whatever. It was his house now. Whatever.

_Whatever._

It didn’t feel like a ‘whatever’, though.

 

* * *

 

He wasn’t even hungry when they were done, but he ate the noodles anyway, because it would be a waste just to toss it after he had boiled them. He made them especially salty and added as many eggs as he wanted and even threw in some spam he found in the cabinets. They still didn’t taste like anything special. Akira left the dirty dishes in the sink and opted to clean them before his parents got home. Whatever. He had time.

Even after the sleep, he still felt the stress creeping in his stomach, making him regret having eaten that shitty instant food instead of the curry his mom had left on the stove. It’s not like she was a bad cook. He just felt bad.

He was feeling bad a lot lately.

Akira laid down on his bed, too anxious to even go on his phone. He thought about going to sleep, but sleeping after a meal wasn’t exactly the best way to digest. He didn’t feel like going for a walk, though. He didn’t feel like doing anything at all.

There was nothing to do anyway. It was painfully rare that he’d have such a free weekend like this. If his mom were home, he’d be sitting at his desk, reading a book but checking his phone every few seconds because the reading material was boring. Then before lunch he’d do practice problems and then after lunch, his homework, and on certain days he’d go to cram school and on others he’d just study at home.

Yesterday, his dad came home earlier than usual and had dinner with him. He asked how far Akira had gotten on that book about economics he had bought him, because high school level economics wasn’t enough for Akira, and economics was a desperately important topic for a high school student.

“I read a bit,” he had said, and his father’s face had paused, wrist leaning against the table and fingers holding chopsticks as he stared at Akira with a quiet sort of anger that he had unwittingly passed down to his son.

“A bit?” he asked. “You read just a bit? You’ve had that book for a month.”

“I’ve been busy,” Akira said weakly, knowing that tone all too well, as he stared down at his own rice bowl. He forced another bite in his mouth and chewed. It tasted like nothing under his father’s gaze.

“Busy? Doing what? You’re in high school, all you need to do is study. That’s your job.”

“I’ve got exams,” he said softly, forcing himself to swallow. “Sorry.”

His father put his chopsticks down. Akira braced himself.

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry, tell me you’ve finished the book. You’ve always got excuses, there’s never anything else from you. Do you know how I feel when I come home and all my son does is lounge around, not doing the one thing I asked him to do?”

His voice was stern, a sort of rising rage in his tone, but it never broke past the specific point like his mother’s rage did. Akira didn’t know what was scarier.

“I’m sorry,” he said weakly again. “I’ll finish it by next week.”

“How are you going to finish it by next week? You have exams, don’t you?” his father said, shaking a finger at him. “This kid …”

“What have you been doing in your room all this time then?” his mother chimed in, to his horror. “You said you were reading.”

“I was,” he lied. “A book for school.”

“You’re always in your room and you spent a whole month just to read a book for school?” she snapped. He flinched.

“It was _Genji Monogatari_ ,” Akira said.

“Your father asked you to finish a book and you can’t even make time for it?”

He felt tears prickling his eyes, beneath his glasses. He didn’t reply.

“Well?”

He couldn’t reply.

“This kid … think a little, _think!_ ”

Akira took another bite. It would be worse to just leave the table than to finish his meal in silence. His parents complained about his work habits in front of him as he picked apart a fish with his chopsticks. It was a rare moment in which they agreed with one another.

 

* * *

 

 _Whatever_ , he thought when he got to his room and sat at his desk table. Whatever. They were always like this. Whatever.

Akira willed himself to not cry, just in case his parents called him back out of his room for another scolding, because if they saw his swollen eyes then they’d yell at him for crying too. _What do you have to cry about, you’ve got no reason to be crying!_

He wondered just how normal this was. But it would be no use in wondering, because it was normal in this house, and there was nothing he could change by wondering. He sat at his desk, tense and quiet, just in case he heard them call his name, like a prisoner waiting for the wardens’ rounds.

After a few minutes, he let himself relax, and sit on his bed instead, a risk, given that his parents saw him as being lazy every time they caught him doing anything on his bed rather than at his desk. It was especially dangerous, because he was absolutely exhausted, and a part of him knew that if he sat at his bed, he’d fall asleep.

He had, but only for half an hour, because he was too anxious to sleep any longer than that.

 

* * *

 

“Akira,” his mother called, sitting him at the dining table where she had been reading a book. “Come here.”

He shuffled over, a hand trying desperately to tame his wild hair. He was tired, he’d come back from cram school, and the commute alone had been an hour long. He wanted to go shower and relax for a bit. It had been exactly four days since the last commotion, and the house had quieted a little since. His mother wasn’t totally frustrated with him anymore, but the aggravation still lingered. He heard them complain about him outside his door, his mother ranting on and on while his father tiredly agreed, until he couldn’t take it anymore and jammed earphones inside his ears, tuning them out in favor of whatever was on YouTube.

“When your father asks you to do something, it’s because he’s an adult who knows what you’ll need in the future. So you need to listen to him,” she started. He tried to not look too disinterested, but he didn’t want to back down either. The balance between meek humility and rebellious disinterest was something he had mastered over the years, and his mother didn’t notice.

“Do you even want to study? Do you even care? Should I pull you out of cram school?”

His mother said these words with the kind of concern meant to guilt him, the kind he knew was a trap. If he answered honestly, she would do as he asked, only to make him miserable for choosing the wrong answer. If he answered dishonestly, she would shake her head and continue with “you don’t act like it”.

Akira answered dishonestly and she continued with “you don’t act like it”.

He tried to explain himself. He was tired. He wasn’t interested in economics. It wasn’t even a huge part of his curriculum in school. Exams were coming up. He wanted to try doing more light reading, more fiction. He had even picked up an English book at the library, something about a gentleman thief named Arsene Lupin. He wanted to try studying other things. She shook her head.

“Akira, you don’t have time to play around. You’re in high school now. This isn’t the time to try other things, you need to focus on what’s important _now_.”

He wished he could close his eyes and take every shitty thing around him and set it ablaze.

He kept his eyes open and half-heartedly listened.

 

* * *

 

Every day he heard his parents whisper outside his door, he couldn’t help but freeze and listen. He knew it was about him because if it weren’t, his mother would be screaming and his father would just raise his voice a little bit, enough so that she could hear him. Anxiety clawed at his insides. They were picking at other things now, how his mother caught him one too many times on his phone, how he came home and napped instead of studying on certain days when he thought his mother wouldn’t be home. Surely they’d come into his room soon to confront him on his poor behavior.

They didn’t that day and he was grateful. He returned the book about the gentleman thief the next day.

 

* * *

 

“Akira, you’re a grown boy now. You know how tired your father is when he gets home. Please, just do what he asks, to ease his burdens. Neither of us want to lecture you, it’s not fun for anyone.”

_Whatever._

“I know he’s tired, but I don’t mean to upset him.”

“You never mean to do anything, but you always do it.”

_Whatever._

“High school is much more demanding than middle school. You have to pick up the pace if you want to make it. Colleges don’t look at the kids who did ‘well’, they look at the kids who did it ‘best’.”

_Whatever._

“I know. I’m sorry.”

_Whatever._

“Don’t tell me you’re sorry. Just do it.”

_Whatever._

“Okay.”

 

* * *

 

“You know that kid in class 1-C? The one who sits in the back?”

“Wait, the one with the huge glasses?”

“No, he doesn’t wear glasses. The one with the bad hair who never talks to anyone.”

“Oh, Kurusu. Yeah, what about him?”

“I heard he got arrested. Assaulted some stranger on the street and seriously hurt him.”

“What?! You sure you’re talking about the same Kurusu?”

“My dad works at the police station, he says he saw him get detained.”

“No way, that’s totally scary … a criminal goes to our school?”

“Not anymore he doesn’t. What school’s gonna let in someone that violent?”

“Did he just like, snap or something? He’s always so quiet in class…”

“The quiet types are the scariest, man.”

“I always thought he had like, no personality or anything. He’s like, the definition of boring. How’s someone like that attacking anyone?”

“Someone says he actually killed the guy.”

“What?! Scary …”

“Maybe he killed him and absorbed his personality, since he doesn’t have one!”

“Shut up, it’s not funny!”

“You’re laughing though!”

 

* * *

 

They were rightfully angry, his parents. _Why did you get involved in something that wasn’t even your business? We’re getting sued now, do you realize what that means? You’re getting expelled! What are the neighbors going to say? What’s your father’s co-workers going to say about him when they find out?_

Akira stared at his hands blankly, fingers shaking.

His mother’s screeching was dull in his ears, and he wondered if his parents had always been this way.

 

* * *

 

They were going to divorce, it seemed. Right before the incident, before Akira found himself being grappled by the cops, his parents’ arguments had reached an all time low. It wasn’t late enough at night that Akira could pretend to have slept through it. It was dinner, and he had eaten earlier on his way home. He sat in his room and twiddled his thumbs at his desk, his toes curling in and out, a finger playing with a bit of his hair as he listened to them argue for what seemed like years. His body was doing that thing again, the thing when his neck got sore and he felt like there was an inferno blazing in his stomach, a twisting, terrible anxiety and fear in his chest, hoping, begging that their fight wouldn’t reach him in his room.

This cell was meant to protect the inmate, not the wardens.

 

* * *

 

There was a blank darkness ahead of him, as he opened the box that his parents had sent him. It was just a few clothes, a few pairs of shoes, a handful of notebooks and textbooks. He noted the absence of his economics book. The future that once seemed so sure and definitive, despite its abstract shape, had been whisked away from him. His record, tarnished with the court’s ruling, his image as someone boring marred by the violent criminal who would stab anyone for making eye contact.

He didn’t really need his glasses for anything but reading; he was farsighted, after all. But he kept them on in place of his usual contacts, as if shirking away from the gaze of his new fellow students.

There was a darkness ahead of him that he could see without his glasses, a ruin where his chances of college plummeted into the murky depths.

What did he even want to go to college for anyway?

…

He wasn’t sure.

 

* * *

 

Then, at the end of that darkness, was a blue light.

 

_Was your previous decision a mistake, then?_

_…_

**_IT WASN’T!_ **

 

* * *

 

_“Trickster, I welcome you to my Velvet Room.”_

The strange man peered at him from between the bars of his cell, flanked by two young girls dressed in blue uniform. They were the wardens it seemed, as the one with the buns slammed her electric rod against the metal. Akira jumped back. The one with the braids hummed coldly, scolding him for taking too long to answer.

He wondered if these two had always been that way.

**Author's Note:**

> there is a good ending to this. akira's parents got back together. because caroline and justine returned to becoming lavenza. home's a better place now. 'i love you, my trickster', lavenza tells akira like she was supposed to all this time.
> 
> i'm waiting for my turn. you should wait for yours too.


End file.
